By
Vishal Bhidu
The Cryptoverse Summit hosted by Wakanda 4.0 kickstarted on May 17 at the ITC Hotel, Balaclava drawing a huge turnout of both local and global experts and participants in the presence of Permanent Secretary at Ministry of Financial Services Mr. Sarwansingh Purmessur, Chief Executive at the Financial Services Mr. Dhanesswurnath Thakoor, Director of Financial Services at the Economic Development Board (EDB) Vinay Guddye and founder & CEO at Wakanda 4.0 Mr. Benito Elisa.
The Permanent Secretary delivered the keynote address on behalf of the Financial Services Minister Seeruttun who is on a foreign mission where it reads that FinTech as a sphere of economic activity is very close to his heart and whose progress is being closely monitored. It mentions that while the past two years have been challenging at the Ministry and the FSC level, the coming years will witness several developments that may shape the potential market and structures.
“It is best to understand the exclusive growth and potential of FinTech while ensuring stability, safety, and soundness of market and investors coupled with the objective of the Government is well underway to make jurisdiction the FinTech hub for the future,” it reads.
It further reads on the introduction of Virtual Assets and Initial Token Offerings back in 2021 defined as a bold step with the five different licenses that go a long way to help diversify its offerings in making the 30-year-old International Financial Services (IFC) more modern and attractive.
Mr. Purmessur mentions the various objectives set to be achieved during the day’s deliberations where observation is made on the many sessions on the agenda such as compliance and regulations with the policymakers and regulators looking forward to learning from the industry experts and practitioners on ways to serve the market and customers.
“Such a platform promotes Mauritius as being safe and robust as well as posing as virtual assets-friendly jurisdiction. During many overseas missions, one can see lots of growing interest on the part of Virtual Assets providers who are considering the local jurisdiction and mulling applying for the Virtual Assets license owing to the fact that VAITOS lends comfort to investors with a dedicated legal framework, operating with certainty and predictability,” reads the speech alluding to the Minister.
In his welcoming remarks, Mr. Benito Elisa. told at the outset that the event saw the participation of 45 speakers hailing from 17 countries encompassing speakers across virtual reality, blockchain, metaverse experts, and lawyers among others. He told: “The potential of virtual assets is huge where the conference strives to discuss the future of virtual assets and the blockchain industry deemed as one of the most dynamic industries globally coupled with the fact that the total market cap for crypto is at USD 1.3 trillion.”
He also lauded the efforts undertaken by authorities and in particular the VAITOS Act considered a big milestone for the cryptocurrency that was successfully introduced last year.
Director of Financial Services at EDB Mr. Vinay Guddye underlined the extent to which Artificial Intelligence has gone up in a way that one cannot imagine with the coming of Chat GPT calling the need for stability and mitigating worries.
“As a jurisdiction, Mauritius has been able to exit the FATF Grey in a record time of 18 months setting forth the right procedures with the help of the Government and private stakeholders so much that now global institutions and countries are seeking our expertise to help them exit the list.”
He added that African nations such as Kenya, Tanzania, South Africa, and Nigeria are among the top 20 globally having adopted crypto where in this context, Mauritius offers several attributes such as the regulatory framework along with several facilities in terms of risk mitigation and ranking high across several indexes such as Tax competitiveness and as the best place to work from home adding to the VAITOS Act offering a regulatory framework in supporting business.
“We live in a cashless society where cryptocurrency is here to stay with the Bank of Mauritius recently spoke about the digital rupee that will see some shape by the year’s end.”
Chief Executive at FSC, Mr Thakoor in his address mentioned: “The VAITOS was launched with a specific objective to help regulate all activities in the crypto industry including the issuance of token offerings designed at the same time to manage, mitigate and prevent money laundering, prevention of terrorism and proliferation of risks associated with Virtual Assets. We have also streamlined the licenses process for applications under the VAITOS Act where six in principles have been approved spanning across Virtual Assets dealers, Virtual Assets Custodians, Virtual Assets Market Place. Virtual Asset Wallet Services and Virtual Assets Advisory Services.”
He also announced that there are several applications under process and more licenses shall be granted towards the year-end.
